AAT refurbishment and instrument

The facilities at the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) are to be refurbished to assist in maintaining them at a world-class standard for at least the next ten years. In addition, a new instrument for the Anglo-Australian Telescope, providing world-leading scientific capabilities, will be developed, built and installed. The milestones and budget for these two projects are available in the attachments to the AAO NCRIS subcontract.

Advisory Committee

At the First General Meeting of AAL, the members requested that "The AAL Board shall investigate the establishment of a committee to advise it on the AAO and 8 meter class telescopes". AAL is currently investigating the establishment of such a committee. However, until such a committee exists, AAL will take advice from the AAT Board on matters related to the refurbishment of the AAT and a new instrument for the AAT.

AAT refurbishment

AAL will pay the AAO $4.1M over the next four years to refurbish the AAT. The scope of work will include:

  • Telescope subsystems;
  • Architectural and building works;
  • Dome;
  • Infrastructure.

AAT instrument

AAL will pay the AAO $5.92M over the next four years to build a new instrument for the AAT. The process for selecting the new instrument will involve consultations with the AAO’s user community and approvals from the AAT and AAL Boards. To date, options for the new instrument have been discussed at an open meeting of the Australian user community on 18 May 2006, at the AAO Users’ Committee meetings on 27 July 2006 and 9 February 2007, and at the AAT Board meetings on 20-22 September 2006 and 2-3 April 2007. The science cases and current technical concepts will be presented to the AAO Users’ Committee on 26 July 2007 and to an Australian community meeting in the second quarter of FY07-08. The final conceptual design review will occur in the third quarter of FY07-08 and will involve the AAO Users’ Committee to provide feedback from the user community. A final decision on which instrument to pursue will probably be taken by the AAT Board in mid-2008, and approval for this course of action will then be sought from the AAL Board, which will have been receiving progress reports on a regular basis throughout this whole process.